Jammu: Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Sunday that concerns expressed by security forces had forced the BJP to give up its plan for providing plots of land at safer places to the border residents in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Security forces raised a genuine concern that it will leave border hamlets empty. We raised this demand for many years, but when the time came, we have to shun the plan," Singh, the Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office, said.

File image of Union minister Jitendra Singh. PIB

Addressing a 'Shakti Kendra Pramukh Sammelan' of the party, he said a list of such beneficiaries was still lying in the Deputy Commissioner's office at Kathua as the BJP had started the process to provide the plots.

"The concern of security forces was genuine...Our perception was based on emotions. We respect the security forces and if they had any concern, it is our concern as well," he said adding that they suggested chalking out alternative plans for the safety of the people.

He said the Centre had promptly sanctioned construction of over 14,400 underground bunkers at a cost of Rs 415.73 crore for the safety of people living along the LoC and the IB in Jammu division.

"Pakistani firing on the borders is going on for decades and people are questioning where the bunkers had gone. Nothing was done for the people of the border residents for the last 70 years and it is BJP which has sanctioned the bunkers and transferred the amount to the state government," he said.

He lauded the response of the state administration to the intense shelling.

He asked party activists to prepare for the next year’s general elections.

"We are living in the times of facts and figures and also there is an ever-increasing need to counter the negative propaganda of the Opposition promptly," he said.

Terming elections as the festival of democracy, he urged all to take the public welfare schemes of the Modi government to the masses.